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WiFi-only Motorola Xoom priced at $600

Motorola has announced that a WiFi-only version of its Xoom tablet will be …

The WiFi-only version of the Motorola Xoom tablet will be priced $200 less than the data network-enabled version, a Motorola chief executive told Reuters on Wednesday. The WiFi Xoom will cost $600 and will not require the activation of a data plan to use the WiFi, unlike the 4G-enabled version.

The leak of a Best Buy circular ad listed the Xoom at an unsubsidized price of $799, and a note underneath said that even if customers only wanted to use the WiFi on the device, they would have to activate at least one month of data service at a cost of $20.

But Sanjay Jha, a chief executive with Motorola Mobility, officially confirmed on Wednesday that there would be a WiFi-only version of the tablet, which presumably won't need data activation to use. Of course, the downside is that a WiFi-only version can't be subsidized by a data contract, so customers will pay the full $600 price.

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston